Do you think Bitcoin is fungible?

[BlackHatCoiner]

If Bitcoin's original plan was total privacy, what's the essence of the blockchain?

• Total privacy wasn't the original plan.
• Just because the blockchain is transparent, it doesn't mean coins are non-fungible.

This isn't supposed to be an argument BlackHat, Bitcoin isn't fungible

The fact that you can spend any coin at the exact same exchange rate as any other coin proves it is fungible. Literally, point me to any coin you want and I can point you to a place where you can spend it or trade it normally.

That's the definition of fungibility.

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[franky1]

let wait a few years for black hat to have a real revelation

money is not fungible
money does not have to be fungible

blackhat just thinks a narrow path that fits whatever he is promoting

2 people working the same job same hours same location.. one only needs to work 40 minutes for $10, the other works an hour for $10

walking between 2 shops on same major road. $2 can buy a whole loaf of bread, however a mile away that same $2 wont be enough to buy a whole loaf of same brand bread, same day within 20 minutes..

money does not mean the same value to different people

heck even someone receiving $100 from a relative on their birthday is treated differently by the tax man than someone receiving $100 from a days income from work. or $100 in investment gains from a investment sell

1btc to someone in a icelandic/slavic region is worth $25k of mining cost
1btc to someone in the pacific island regions is worth $110k of mining cost
1btc to the market traders is worth $67k

someone would prefer to mine a fresh mined coin for a premium than receive mixed coin even at discount

[highalch]

Since the majority of BTC users do not differentiate between individual satoshis, yes, it is fungible.

There always will be and have been extreme cases where a unit of some fungible token is traded for more or less than the consensus value. See numismatics, the collection of old or special coins for example. If the Fed issues a commemorative coin, it still has a face value, that makes it exchangeable like any other coin. Same with inscribed satoshis.

[goldkingcoiner]

do you not know that the blockchain is served as a public ledger? Which means, in most cases, without mixers or any other interference, there's absolutely no guarantee for privacy?
The sentence on quote from my post (which isn't part of this particular point) has a correlation with these; without a robust procurement for "anonymity/privacy", Bitcoin isn't entirely "fungible"!

By itself, alone?
No. The blockchain is not private. It obviously needs to be public.

But you are removing "mixers or any other interference" out of the equation. They are an intrinsic part of the Bitcoin ecosystem and everything connected to it through decentralized, non-custodial, open source methods.

So yes, Bitcoin is technically only fungible because of what is built on top but it has the intrinsic 'methods' to be made fungible in the first place. Therefore it is intrinsically fungible.

[PIMPdev]

Of course it's fungible. I don't know why is that even a question. The whole NFT market was created to be "non-fungible" because coins and tokens are fungible, just like Bitcoin.

[mindrust]

Might be. I am getting my coins from an exchange and sig camp payments. I don't have any other coin income. So If my sig camp payments are tainted, It might cause me problems. I heard binance locking people's accounts randomly without a reason and these people did their KYC already. That might be the reason why they do that.

That might be a good reason to dump Binance.

Agreed.

So, when cryptosize above said, people can take them bad coins for a discount, his example already violated the description of fungible.

No, it didn't. Just because there might be dumb people who want to trade their "tainted" coins at a 50% discount, doesn't make it the truth. These people can use decentralized solutions to trade them anonymously with no "discount" BS.

They are taking the risk of getting questioned by the police and possibly doing time. That's the risk they are taking for buying these tainted coins. You are willing to take that risk for free. Do you think it is smart? Not from their point of view. You brought decentralized solutions to the discussion but last time I checked, bisq was a ghost town and exchanges like eXch aren't really decentralized. When they have a volume above the limit, it will ring a bell and the gov will take it down just like how they did it to chipmexer.

And when nobody wants these tainted coins, that means these coins can't act as currency anymore. If nobody wants them, they ain't fungible. They can't perform. They can't function. (except for you, to you they are still fungible.

Except for me, and for every single person out there who's using decentralized exchanges, or exchanges which don't discriminate their traders based on inaccurate blockchain analysis.

Every other single person out there who's using dex's and how many are there of those people actually? Can you give me a number? And compare it to the people that use centralized exchanges maybe? What is the rate? 1 to 100? 1 to 1000? 1 to 10.000? There aren't as many people that use dex's. as you think there are.

Right now there are 173 offers for the EUR/BTC pair and 68 offers for the USD/BTC pair on bisq.

And in that case, the police would knock your door... you'd have some explaining to do.

For once more, that's a privacy problem, not a fungibility problem. The fact that I'd be directly tied with ISIS doesn't make the coins less valuable than the rest.

Let's hear what Andread Antonopoulos has to say about this.



At minute 3:40, He says  bitcoin is fungible-ish. He doesn't say it is fungible. He says exchanges are starting to reject some coins and that's becoming a problem. Before he talks about that, he explains what fungible is.

I'll copy paste it too:



At 1:24, His explanation is spot on, money is fungible indeed. He said FIAT are also fungible because nobody checks their serial numbers but that's not true for banks. Banks do check them from time to time. He was wrong there. Yes normal every day people and businesses don't have the patience or resources to check the serial number of a dollar bill. I said this in my first post in this topic too. With bitcoin, chain analysis is much faster and automated so it doesn't apply to bitcoin. Exchanges do check bitcoin's history on the block chain. He is also missing something else there, FIAT is not money, I'll come back to this later.

let wait a few years for black hat to have a real revelation
money is not fungible
money does not have to be fungible
blackhat just thinks a narrow path that fits whatever he is promoting
2 people working the same job same hours same location.. one only needs to work 40 minutes for $10, the other works an hour for $10
walking between 2 shops on same major road. $2 can buy a whole loaf of bread, however a mile away that same $2 wont be enough to buy a whole loaf of same brand bread, same day within 20 minutes..
money does not mean the same value to different people
heck even someone receiving $100 from a relative on their birthday is treated differently by the tax man than someone receiving $100 from a days income from work. or $100 in investment gains from a investment sell
1btc to someone in a icelandic/slavic region is worth $25k of mining cost
1btc to someone in the pacific island regions is worth $110k of mining cost
1btc to the market traders is worth $67k
someone would prefer to mine a fresh mined coin for a premium than receive mixed coin even at discount

You are not more informed than blackhat on this matter sadly. Do you know what is more dangerous than being uninformed? Being half-informed.

Money is fungible. It is because money is a commodity. Every commodity can become money. Rice, tobacco, coffee, water, gold, copper... Some are obviously more practical than the others. Gold coins are definitely more practical than water for example. Commodities are fungible.

FIAT is not money. It is a currency. (It used to be money when it was backed by gold, a commodity. Now it is backed by nothing.) That's the difference between a gold coin and a dollar bill. One of them is money, the other one is currency. Bitcoin? Bitcoin is close to be money because it is "fungible-ish". It is not fungible. "Fungible-ish", means its position can change from situation to situation. In the USA, it is not really fungible. In Russia? It is fungible probably since no Russian business will care.

If you can sell you hacked coin to some careless or uninformed people, it is fungible for you because people like blackhat will take these coins without thinking about the consequences of their actions.  How many of those people are there? Definitely not as many as blackhat thinks. Maybe he doesn't live in EU or USA where people get punished for that kind of stuff.

People who became crypto investors learned it from the internet and there are far too much wrong info on the internet. Everyone has an idea but only a few has real information.

[BlackHatCoiner]

They are taking the risk of getting questioned by the police and possibly doing time. That's the risk they are taking for buying these tainted coins.

Say that I received 1 BTC from ISIS. I send this bitcoin to whirlpool. It's getting mixed 'til eternity. Please explain me the risk from selling coinjoined coins. I have no direct relation with ISIS from a blockchain perspective, and chain analysis will simply flag it as "taint" because of its inability to track it, just as with XMR.

You brought decentralized solutions to the discussion but last time I checked, bisq was a ghost town and exchanges like eXch aren't really decentralized.

I love how we transitioned from "certain coins can be traded for a 50% discount" to "b-b-but Bisq lacks liquidity". You know what it brings to mind? "Bitcoin holds no value because no vendors accept it".  

If there's insufficient liquidity, make an offer. As for eXch being centralized, yes, it can be shut down. But, is it currently treating all coins equally? Yes. Are there more swap services that stick to the same notion? Yes. As long as there's just one, Bitcoin is fungible.
 

Every other single person out there who's using dex's and how many are there of those people actually? Can you give me a number? And compare it to the people that use centralized exchanges maybe? What is the rate? 1 to 100? 1 to 1000? 1 to 10.000? There aren't as many people that use dex's. as you think there are.

"How many people out there use Bitcoin as currency, 1 to 100, 1 to 1.000, 1 to 10.000? It's not money!"  

As for Andreas, I don't completely agree with him on this matter. He once told its viewers to send coinjoined coins to themselves for k times so that "taint" can disappear and their centralized exchange accept their private coins, which is completely moronic, and due to the nature of "taint", is not guaranteed to work.

[mindrust]

They are taking the risk of getting questioned by the police and possibly doing time. That's the risk they are taking for buying these tainted coins.

Say that I received 1 BTC from ISIS. I send this bitcoin to whirlpool. It's getting mixed 'til eternity. Please explain me the risk from selling coinjoined coins. I have no direct relation with ISIS from a blockchain perspective, and chain analysis will simply flag it as "taint" because of its inability to track it, just as with XMR.

XMR is 100% fungible, unlike bitcoin. That's why the government doesn't like it and centralized exchanges are delisting it.

Say you received 1 btc from ISIS and sent it to whirlpool... when the coin is mixed, the authority won't be able to know if your coins came from ISIS or not. This time, you are bearing the risk of using mixed coins. You exchanged one risk for another. The gov don't like that too.

You brought decentralized solutions to the discussion but last time I checked, bisq was a ghost town and exchanges like eXch aren't really decentralized.

I love how we transitioned from "certain coins can be traded for a 50% discount" to "b-b-but Bisq lacks liquidity". You know what it brings to mind? "Bitcoin holds no value because no vendors accept it".  

If there's insufficient liquidity, make an offer. As for eXch being centralized, yes, it can be shut down. But, is it currently treating all coins equally? Yes. Are there more swap services that stick to the same notion? Yes. As long as there's just one, Bitcoin is fungible.

Certain coins can be traded for a 50% discount indeed. Do you deny it? Are you saying it never happened? Do you claim people will never buy bad coins for a discount?

Bisq's liquidity is another topic. It certainly lacks liquidity. That's another fact. Do you deny that too?

If nobody accepted bitcoin, bitcoin wouldn't have a price. You are selling 1 coin for a million dollars. You are the only seller on the market. There are no buyers. What's the worth of that coin? Zero or one million dollars?

Every other single person out there who's using dex's and how many are there of those people actually? Can you give me a number? And compare it to the people that use centralized exchanges maybe? What is the rate? 1 to 100? 1 to 1000? 1 to 10.000? There aren't as many people that use dex's. as you think there are.

"How many people out there use Bitcoin as currency, 1 to 100, 1 to 1.000, 1 to 10.000? It's not money!"  

As for Andreas, I don't completely agree with him on this matter. He once told its viewers to send coinjoined coins to themselves for k times so that "taint" can disappear and their centralized exchange accept their private coins, which is completely moronic, and due to the nature of "taint", is not guaranteed to work.

You said people use dex and trade their tainted coins all the time and I asked how many people? I see there are only ~250 offers for FIAT/BTC pair. The volume on bisq is indeed booming /s

Andreas knows his shit, definitely more than you do. :/

[BlackHatCoiner]

XMR is 100% fungible, unlike bitcoin. That's why the government doesn't like it and centralized exchanges are delisting it.

Say you received 1 btc from ISIS and sent it to whirlpool... when the coin is mixed, the authority won't be able to know if your coins came from ISIS or not. This time, you are bearing the risk of using mixed coins. You exchanged one risk for another. The gov don't like that too.

So, let me get this straight:

• I trade mixed bitcoin: I'm bearing a risk.
• I trade (mixed) XMR: I'm not bearing a risk.

Completely reasonable.

Certain coins can be traded for a 50% discount indeed. Do you deny it?

No. Dumb people exist. That does not change the reality though. If you think it does, then neither Monero is fungible, because I can find an idiot who will buy my coinbase coins with a 50% premium.

Bisq's liquidity is another topic. It certainly lacks liquidity. That's another fact. Do you deny that too?

It certainly has less traders than Binance, yes. That does not mean it's not an option. And Bisq was just an example. You can even use atomic swaps, or a host variety of other services to convert any bitcoin to either fiat or crypto.

If you don't believe me or don't get it... You know how it goes.

[mindrust]

XMR is 100% fungible, unlike bitcoin. That's why the government doesn't like it and centralized exchanges are delisting it.

Say you received 1 btc from ISIS and sent it to whirlpool... when the coin is mixed, the authority won't be able to know if your coins came from ISIS or not. This time, you are bearing the risk of using mixed coins. You exchanged one risk for another. The gov don't like that too.

So, let me get this straight:

• I trade mixed bitcoin: I'm bearing a risk.
• I trade (mixed) XMR: I'm not bearing a risk.

Completely reasonable.

XMR can't be tracked so you are always bearing a risk when you use it on the centralized services and businesses, that's if you can find any business that accepts your monero. No business, no risk. Only happy hodling.

Certain coins can be traded for a 50% discount indeed. Do you deny it?

No. Dumb people exist. That does not change the reality though. If you think it does, then neither Monero is fungible, because I can find an idiot who will buy my coinbase coins with a 50% premium.

From their point of view, people who buy these tainted coins without a discount are the dumb ones. They take the risk for free.

Bisq's liquidity is another topic. It certainly lacks liquidity. That's another fact. Do you deny that too?

It certainly have less traders than Binance, yes. That does not mean it's not an option. And Bisq was just an example. You can even use atomic swaps, or a host variety of other services to convert any bitcoin to either fiat or crypto.

If you don't believe me or don't get it... You know how it goes.

Same here, wanna keep this up for another hour?  

[Elex]

For sure, I'm on the same page. If a business doesn't understand that every BTC is equal, they're definitely losing my business.

[franky1]

let wait a few years for black hat to have a real revelation
money is not fungible
money does not have to be fungible
blackhat just thinks a narrow path that fits whatever he is promoting
2 people working the same job same hours same location.. one only needs to work 40 minutes for $10, the other works an hour for $10
walking between 2 shops on same major road. $2 can buy a whole loaf of bread, however a mile away that same $2 wont be enough to buy a whole loaf of same brand bread, same day within 20 minutes..
money does not mean the same value to different people
heck even someone receiving $100 from a relative on their birthday is treated differently by the tax man than someone receiving $100 from a days income from work. or $100 in investment gains from a investment sell
1btc to someone in a icelandic/slavic region is worth $25k of mining cost
1btc to someone in the pacific island regions is worth $110k of mining cost
1btc to the market traders is worth $67k
someone would prefer to mine a fresh mined coin for a premium than receive mixed coin even at discount

You are not more informed than blackhat on this matter sadly. Do you know what is more dangerous than being uninformed? Being half-informed.

Money is fungible. It is because money is a commodity. Every commodity can become money. Rice, tobacco, coffee, water, gold, copper... Some are obviously more practical than the others. Gold coins are definitely more practical than water for example. Commodities are fungible.

FIAT is not money. It is a currency. (It used to be money when it was backed by gold, a commodity. Now it is backed by nothing.) That's the difference between a gold coin and a dollar bill. One of them is money, the other one is currency. Bitcoin? Bitcoin is close to be money because it is "fungible-ish". It is not fungible. "Fungible-ish", means its position can change from situation to situation. In the USA, it is not really fungible. In Russia? It is fungible probably since no Russian business will care.

If you can sell you hacked coin to some careless or uninformed people, it is fungible for you because people like blackhat will take these coins without thinking about the consequences of their actions.  How many of those people are there? Definitely not as many as blackhat thinks. Maybe he doesn't live in EU or USA where people get punished for that kind of stuff.

blackhat pretends to not care about taint... but he does care.. thats why he thinks mixers are needed

also you have things the wrong way
fiat is money (a common medium of exchange)
anything can be currency(even sexual favours from your wife in exchange for getting her a gucci purse)
currency is a broad term which has sub categories: money(legal tender(fiat)), asset, commodity
money WAS valued, pegged to a commodity when backed by gold. because gold is a commodity
but money does not need to be a commodity to be money.
the features of commodity of money were replaced by laws of value (tax, min wage, accountancy, fines, debts)
yep fiat is backed by something even now.. government laws which make it circulate commonly as a medium of exchange

also if you want to be informed learn the word fungible
commodity has closer features of fungible. such as all wheat on the commodity market is treated as the same quality/product even if grown slightly differently on different farms
however we know not all wheat is the same.. in reality.. outside the commodity stock market
some wheat can have disease, have less/more wheat germ, be GMO, organic, etc

thats why fungibility IN REALITY is not a yes or no. its a scale.. and yes majority can be treated similarly, but that does not mean all are equal. its a scale not a binary option

however money is not binary option fungible, people treat and value money differently based on geo politics, local values and labour differences, taxes, etc

take some real world experiments
if you had a $100 bank note. and some stranger came upto you and said "nice bank note, can i have it.. i have here a $100 you can have"
the initial REALISTIC response is not to just say yes. but instead in the real world you would question what that strangers motives are and you would presume his bank note is dodgy as he seems a little too eager to get your note but relinquish his own so easily

so people dont treat things equally, they do question the other persons holding

if btc was truly fungible (in your definition) there would be no reason for mixers
now ask yourself why do you and blackhat need mixers.. i dont need the answer but ask yourself and be honest to yourself

we all know the answer. but it time you start telling the truth to yourself
the only reason blackhat is obsessed with promoting btc is fungible is to con innocent people into giving up their clean coin so he can off load his dirty coin..
if he really thought it was fungible he would not want/need/promote/be part of mixing. he would just hoard his coin as is and not look to recruit victims to offload his dirty coin to

[Sandra_hakeem]

That's the definition of fungibility.

BlackHat, I understand how strong and enthusiastic you may have become and, to be very honest - I'm not against it  frfr To a point that It's almost impossible to convince you otherwise (which isn't my motive)... Ehnnn, but the sad part is that the truth can't be diverted for your interest sake.
Bitcoin has all the criterias to be called a "fungible coin" - ofcourse the value of 1/4, 1/5 of 1 BTC still equals the wholesome coin ^{[This is the base and your own very perspective of understanding fungibility]}... The transparency of the blockchain has slowly been made a target...Do you not believe just as they've proven that - atleast 38 - 46% of Bitcoin transactions(on the blockchain) are "tainted coins"? And that most of these coins don't get redeemed at the same price tag? Look, I don't have anything against Bitcoin itself - but I can't vouch that peeps are patronizing them mixers for nothing sake!

[hatshepsut93]

Well, fiat money is considered to be fungible, yet it has the same concept of taint. Entities like banks or some companies can freeze and reject transactions if they deemed as high risk by their algorithms, for example coming from a blacklisted country. Or when a person with no financial history suddenly deposits a huge sum in cash.

That's a good point actually. I never thought that electronic fiat is non-fungible.  

Well it's a bit more complex than that. A grocery store won't be doing any background checks and asking for proof of income, so in that situation fiat is fungible - a criminal can walk in with a stolen credit card and pay with it. But generally when doing large value transactions your bank will ask about the source of your money if they have a reason to - like if you are getting $3,000 paychecks every month, and suddenly deposit millions in cash.

[cryptosize]

1btc to someone in a icelandic/slavic region is worth $25k of mining cost
1btc to someone in the pacific island regions is worth $110k of mining cost
1btc to the market traders is worth $67k

There's also this:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/kimchi-premium.asp
https://forkast.news/kimchi-premium-7pct/
https://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/what-is-kimchi-premium-how-can-we-calculate-kimchi-premium/

Different places, different market conditions...

[cryptosize]

No. Dumb people exist. That does not change the reality though. If you think it does, then neither Monero is fungible, because I can find an idiot who will buy my coinbase coins with a 50% premium.

Judging by the 840000 block craziness, I'm willing to bet 1 BTC that if someone (maybe Satoshi, or maybe someone else) could move 1 BTC from Satoshi's stash (especially from the early blocks), then you would find plenty of buyers willing to pay a 100%, 200%, maybe even 500% premium.

We may argue that 1 BTC = 1 BTC, but the market has the final word.

I disagree with Antonopoulos that 1 EUR = 1 EUR, because I've seen plenty of cases where collectors sell rare euro coins for a hefty premium.

In general, yes, if you go to a store, they don't care if it's a rare or less-rare euro, they'll accept it at its face value.

But you cannot stop the market from doing its own thing. Collectors will always exist (hoarding collectibles is a DNA instinct).

For me stamps have no special value, but for collectors they do. Same with Ordinal NFTs and other stuff.

anything can be currency(even sexual favours from your wife in exchange for getting her a gucci purse)

1 pussy = 1 pussy

Right?

4 billion pussies max cap (currently)...

But the (sexual) market has decided that different pussies have different value (aka SMV).

[Obulis]

I want to get an answer to this question from the community of Bitcoin.

The opinions on fungibility go like this:

• No: Many places buy the "taint" nonsense and treat bitcoins unequally. Therefore, you might be discriminated based on your coins' history.
• Yes: No matter the history, 1 BTC = 1 BTC, always. The protocol doesn't treat them differently, and we shouldn't interact with businesses that enforce this "taint" notion, which is evidently based on inaccurate fallacies.

I'm personally on the latter group. Third parties can treat them however they like. They're just losing me as client. Decentralized solutions treat all coins equally, as they should.

In the Monero community, there is a prevailing perspective that due to these businesses, Bitcoin is not fungible, and Monero is. My question is: have you ever paid a business that buys the "taint" nonsense with Monero? Does it make any sense to enforce this BS while accepting a completely private currency that you cannot track? In my view, if a business performs blacklists on my bitcoins, it absolutely doesn't accept Monero. You either accept both Bitcoin and Monero as fungible, or you blacklist the former and delist the latter (due to your inability to track it).

From other people's responses /reviews to your questions is bitcoin fungible?
The fungibility of bitcoin is personal as some people are looking out to avoid tainted coins

[The Cryptovator]

There is a local proverb in my country: "Money won't be tainted." So no way is Bitcoin tainted; mixing Bitcoin doesn't change anything except increase privacy. It's always fungible; we can trade or do whatever we like with our Bitcoin. The money could be used for any purpose, but that but that doesn't mean it's tainted when used for crime. The way we spending money won't be tainted but money itself won't. So Bitcoin is a currency that exists online. It can't be tainted and is always fungible. 

[Zanab247]

Fungibility by law means a commodity or a product that is replaceable by another item similar to the commodity or product. Bitcoin is fungible and can be bought. Bitcoin has all the characteristics of what we can described as fungible. This should not be about tainted coin or comparing it with monero. This should not even be a matter of argument.

We know that BTC will not live forever, and it can be use to achieve your goal if you can embrace the opportunity to invest in BTC and hodl it for a long period of time before you can sell to make profits to increase your achievement in your environment.

Since BTC is a decentralized currency over the years now, is fungible because there are some coins in the market you can buy and hodl, and they will give you profits BTC use to give to those that invested in BTC, and if BTC disappear from the market today there will be other coins people can use to replace BTC investment in the community.

I don't think it will be a matter of argument, because many people have the ideal which is the reason they don't invest what they can't afford to lose on BTC investment.

[el kaka22]

Replaceable seems like it would have been a better word to make it look like we are not looking into changing anything. I agree that it is not going to be that easy to make that difference, but at the same time I believe that we are going to end up with a much better record.

Hopefully we should see the situation changing, it won't be that easy, and we could end up with a much worse situation in the end, I believe that we are going to end up with a result that will not be too simple ,and that's why we need to make sure that we are going to end up with a good one. Obviously it is going to take a while before people could make the difference, but I do believe that it is fungible, to me it feels like replacing is the keyword here.